Trouble with Touchscreen Machine...

Matt Lewis | November 04, 2008 10:29 AM

Art imitates life.

On a recent episode of The Simpsons, Homer Simpson had difficulty with a voting machine. Turns out, one of our Townhall staffers had the same problem today (except he wasn't sucked into the machine). First, the Simpsons...

... Of course, when this happens in real life, it's not quite so funny.

In this instance, our staffer was voting in Prince Georges County, Maryland for the Congressional District 4 race. His choice was between Democrat Donna Edwards and Republican Peter James. Here's what he emailed me:

I touched/selected Peter James -Rep. and my screen showed that I had selected Donna Edwards. Dem

I tried to go back a screen and cancel the last selection and it wouldn’t allow me to make a change. I finally had to raise my hand and report to an election official to indicate I had a problem with my machine - drawing a lot of attention to myself, no one else had any trouble with their machines.

The official came over reset my machine and then it reflected the correct selection.

Of course, my guess is a lot of voters wouldn't have noticed -- or had the guts to ask an official for help (he tells me everyone in line was upset with him for raising the issue). Their vote may well have gone to the Dem...